Yup. The UK government now want to not only tax the internet, but now your emails. Taken form an email from one of the members of the local amateur radio club form the magazine Practical Wireless, it seems we may be getting taxed for incoming emails. Could this be an early April 1 joke or for real?
Complete baloney IMO. The US were at one point interested in introducing internet tax, but that was very quickly shot down, and the Internet Tax Freedom Act was introduced to stop it happenning. This law prehibits thetaxing of internet access and bit taxes, bandwidth taxes, and email taxes. With regards to email tax, there have been stories like this circulating for years, most of them completely unfounded, lacking any verifiable evidence. In any case, it's difficult to calculate how much revenue would be generated from taxing emails, as it is unknown exactly how many emails are sent. However, it is thought that roughly 90% of all emails are spam, and so taxation on emails would have to try and deal with that, which i find unlikely. In addition, if the government were to tax emails, businesses and service providers would more than likely just move their email servers offshore to avoid it.
fake Edit: the style is not that of a real journalist and several ideas in the email are ridiculous. For example there is no economic justification for 'taxing emails to make up for royal mail's losses'. It goes against so many founding economic principles of government policy it's staggering. Maybe in teh 70's, but not since then.
Think about it folks. How could any government enforce a programme like this? It would cost far more to police than it would generate in revenue and even then there would be a gazilion workarounds within a heartbeat of such a scheme being announced.
